In the following essay, Garraty traces the personal and political considerations of Holmes's appointment to the Supreme Court.

Early in July, 1902, Associate Justice Horace Gray, troubled by failing health, responded to the urgings of his family and his physician and wrote a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt. Further service might seriously endanger his health, he told the President, and therefore he must resign immediately or upon the appointment of his successor, whichever the President wished.1

His replacement, of course, was a matter for the determination of the Chief Executive subject to the approval of the Senate, but custom imposed certain limitations on the field of choice. In the first place, Judge Gray was a Massachusetts man. His successor, therefore, almost certainly would come from...